(Or as my grandmother used to say: "That's why the old lady refused to die, because she learnt something new every day!").
Here's another one for you (although the inspiration is clearly from Da Vinci (no, not the Code book, the real Leonardo!) which I've included for comparison.
Not sure if the project was carried through, but since there are no Sellmer helos in aviation history books, I think it's safe to assume that the project was er... screwed.
Meanwhile, can you believe that carrying a helo on top of a Lockheed Starfire was actually very seriously considered?
Frank Tinsley never was short of spectacular artwork for Mechanix Illustrated, especially the covers! Here's everyone's personal flying saucer... "Makes any backyard an airport"... Sure.
One of the wackies project I've ever seen on a vintage magazine cover is this giant double-deck tandem rotor helicopter from September 1930... Still figuring out how this behemoth could land!!
Thanks Vince. I love this one. It is the work of the great Frank Tinsley, who did many such futuristic pieces for Mechanics Illustrated and such in the 1950s. Here's a couple more:
In 1935, Louis Marmonier of Lyon, France, was granted a patent describing a unique concept for a tilt-propeller aircraft. Two propellers were mounted between dual fuselages of a canard-wing airplane. The propellers were counter-rotating, with one tilting down and one tilting up (i.e. one pushing down and one pulling up), such that their lines of thrust always lay in the vertical plane passing through the center of gravity. There is no evidence that Marmonier ever built his aircraft.
The nice thing about egotists is that they don't talk about other people. ====================================================== Count Hermann Keyserling once said truly that the greatest American superstition was the belief in facts.
Stanley Hiller did get a working prototype into the air. It would not get very far before it used up all its fuel. When the Korean war began he went into business building more conventional helicopters for the armed forces. I suspect he did not give up entirely on the ramjet helicopter though. Perhaps he built a radio controlled drone. I don't think you can make a cheap helicopter that carries a pilot, as you would have to worry about it failing to fly after it was up in the sky, and falling out of the sky. They might have a use for an expendable helicopter in battle, espically one with a tv camera that could transmit pictures, and it was radio controlled, so it would not matter if it ws shot down.
Are you sure that is a flying saucer bus?^ It appears to me to be something designed for the McDonalds corporation to be a restaurant that has an appearance that suggests a hamburger.
-- Edited by Jasper on Wednesday 18th of November 2015 07:33:53 PM
Sorry the Hiller hornet can do and did autorotations, The fuel burn was excessive and the Army nixed the funding, Frank from Fuel Safe (1995) was the one of the test pilots for the program and we swapped war stories about helicopters his work after Hiller was varied at the time I met him he built the bladder fuel tanks for my Rotormouse.
His scrap book was a whos who of early helicopters. A small world - helicopters.
Palo Alto fire rings, Frank hated the excess fuel on start up it would burn rings in the dirt.
-- Edited by hillberg on Wednesday 18th of November 2015 08:53:44 PM
Are you sure that is a flying saucer bus?^ It appears to me to be something designed for the McDonalds corporation to be a restaurant that has an appearance that suggests a hamburger.
A flying fast food joint? That's a new one!
As Stephane already stated that is a piece by Frank Tinsley known for many futuristic illustration such as that one. It was just an impression based on emerging transport ideas at the time, specifically the Avro VZ-9 and the assorted Flying Jeeps and potential for the civilian market was common for these kind of innovations, despite their eventual failure. It is clearly a variation on the flying bus idea with normal passenger seats, so nothing suggests any type of major food service involved. The colors and aesthetic were also common for the times. Although kind of hard to unsee the burger resemblance now that you mentioned it!
"can you believe that carrying a helo on top of a Lockheed Starfire was actually very seriously considered?"
To me it looks like the helicopter is carrying the Lockheed.
This could be used by a small country that could not afford to buy aircraft carriers for its navy.
If they had a larger and more powerful helicopter which had landing gear that would surround the fighter and reach the ground, they could use this to get airplanes off a regular ship.
Are you sure that is a flying saucer bus?^ It appears to me to be something designed for the McDonalds corporation to be a restaurant that has an appearance that suggests a hamburger.
"can you believe that carrying a helo on top of a Lockheed Starfire was actually very seriously considered?"
To me it looks like the helicopter is carrying the Lockheed.
You're right as one look at the link will tell you just that. tHanks for correcting...
Pepper wrote:
retroistic wrote:
Jasper wrote:
Are you sure that is a flying saucer bus?^ It appears to me to be something designed for the McDonalds corporation to be a restaurant that has an appearance that suggests a hamburger.
A flying fast food joint? That's a new one!
This needs to exist.
OMG yes. Impractical as buck but I would be willing to throw my money at it for shiz and giggles.
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Airplanes are beautiful dreams. Engineers turn dreams into reality.
Frank Tinsley had a good idea with the firecopter.
This concept uses helicopters that have extra power from ramjets mounted on the tips of the rotor blades. This was considered unsafe after tests were done, and ramjets were not installed on any manned rotorcraft.
Maybe if they had a few of these at the world trade center on 9 / 11, they could have put out the fire before the towers collapsed.
-- Edited by Jasper on Sunday 22nd of November 2015 07:42:48 PM